Posts

Showing posts from February, 2016

Testdriving Earley: Part 1 - Basics

Image
So, I decided to write a parser . Silly me, I know. So if I am going to do this, I need to do it properly. So I am going to try and develop it using test driven approach and documenting the whole process in this blog as I go. This is the first article in the series of articles where I try to establish basics and bootstrap a project. First things first. To write a parser, you need to know at least some basics of the theory.  Some of things you need to know at least on the basic levels is the basic theory and terminology around  formal grammars ,  Chomsky hierarchy  of formal grammars and basics of automata theory . You don't have to become an expert (I am certainly not at this point), but the terms and concepts from these theoretical disciplines will crop up here and there and it There is a lot of literature out there about Earley parsers . Some of it even readable for mere mortal developers not used to the academic vernacular. The initial set of source information that he